Profits up at Waterstones

Waterstones has posted its full-year results at Companies house for the year to 27 April.

The accounts filed at Companies house show a 39% pretax profit rise for its first full-year results since being sold to US hedge fund Elliott Advisors in April 2018.

The pretax profits for the full year to 27 April 2019 were £27.7m, up from £19.9m the previous year in 2018.

Sales rose less than 2% from £385.7m to £392.77, a figure which Waterstones has said could be due to the lack of bestsellers throughout the year, and particularly in the crucial Christmas period.

The results were posted shortly after James Daunt, Waterstones chief executive, described the festive trading period as ‘nerve-wracking’, telling Retail Week that Waterstones had to work harder to ensure a ‘blockbuster’ book was on sale for the Christmas period.